In fairness they were massively outnumbered and outgunned. And I’m not discounting the ability of the US Army that beat them, of which my own dad was a part. Even still, it was a close call, and could have gone the other way, especially if Hitler had allowed his professional General Staff to make decisions instead of constantly overriding them with disasterous results. And I do also have respect for the NVA and Russian Spetsnaz too.
I remember a story of an American tank commander who had a copy of Rommel’s book. An Iraqi prisoner asked why he had a book by an enemy of America. The soldier told him to STFU, if more Iraqis had read it they might not be prisoners.
The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.
—Colonel Bernd Von Kielst
The German Army outgunned by the US Army? The Germans had the best tanks, not to mention their 88 mm howitzers, hands down the best gun of WW2.
“especially if Hitler had allowed his professional General Staff to make decisions instead of constantly overriding them with disasterous results”
True, canceling the 262 as a fighter and insisting it be a bomber was a classic of his. Another was the V2 program. Spent the money of the Manhattan project, and produced the weight on target of about 2 raids of the Eighth Air force and Bomber Command.
That whole effort as zippy as it was, was something that by 44 we could do two to three times a week.
Hats off to your dad. Those were the best soldiers ever, far exceeding the respect they get.
Russians were raw numbers combined with German lunacy of the mass murders.
On the eastern front, transport rail was literally too busy moving Jews to be used by the army.
By contrast, the US Army ran straight into Germans that were 100% on the task of warfare.